WASHINGTON — The lights were low and the disco balls spinning as a cake with a fiery sparkler shooting flames into the air was brought out to a robust rendition of “Happy Birthday,” joined by President Donald Trump. The birthday girl, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., then pumped her fist in the air and called out, “Four more years!”
It was a lavish, festive, carefree Saturday evening at Mar-a-Lago a week ago in what in hindsight now seems like a last hurrah for the end of one era and the beginning of another. In the days since then, the presidential estate in Florida has become something of a corona virus hot zone. A growing number of Mar-a-Lago guests from last weekend have said they are infected or put themselves into quarantine.
A week later, the White House physician announced on Saturday night that the president had tested negative for the virus, ending a drama that played out for days as Trump refused repeatedly even to find out whether he had contracted it after exposure to multiple infected people. The result came less than 24 hours after the White House put out a misleading midnight statement saying there was no need for such a test at roughly the same time the president by his own account was actually undergoing one in deference to public pressure.
But either way, the Mar-a-Lago petri dish has become a kind of metaphor for the perils of group gatherings in the age of corona-virus, demonstrating how quickly and silently the virus can spread. No one is necessarily safe from encountering it, not senators or diplomats or even the most powerful person on the planet seemingly secure in a veritable fortress surrounded by Secret Service agents.
Some of last weekend’s guests worried it may be a sign of the times and the last party of its sort for a while at Mar-a-Lago. “I hope not,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., wrote in a text message. “Humans interacting with one another are typically happier and more productive in my experience.”
Gaetz’s experience is a cautionary tale. He attended events at Mar-a-Lago on both Friday and Saturday nights of that first weekend in March, not realizing that he had already been exposed to someone infected with the corona virus at an earlier political event. Only last Monday, as he rode with Trump on Air Force One back to Washington was he told, at which point he was separated from the president and other passengers on the plane. He later went into self-quarantine but tested negative.
Several others at Mar-a-Lago that weekend have since tested positive, including some who accompanied President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil to a dinner with Trump before Guilfoyle’s birthday party. Fabio Wajngarten, his press secretary, and Nestor Forster, his top diplomat in Washington, were both there and later tested positive. A spokeswoman for Nelsinho Trad, a Brazilian senator who has also tested positive, said he was at the dinner but the Brazilian Embassy denied that. Another member of the Brazilian delegation also tested positive but was not at Mar-a-Lago.
Another unidentified person at Mar-a-Lago the next day for a fundraising brunch with the president has also tested positive. And on Saturday, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who introduced Trump at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago the night before Guilfoyle’s party, revealed that she had become sick and was awaiting test results to determine if she has the corona-virus.
Bolsonaro said Friday that he tested negative, but the health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, later said the president would be tested again as a precaution. Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, who met with Bolsonaro while he was in town, reported on Friday that he had tested positive.
While he has been described as agitated in private, Trump has publicly insisted he had no concerns. “I decided I should based on the press conference yesterday,” Trump told reporters on Saturday before the results were known, referring to questions he received the day before in the Rose Garden. “People were asking, did I take the test.”
His revelation came barely 12 hours after the White House statement released in the name of Cmdr. Sean P. Conley, the president’s physician, rejecting the need for a test since his exposure to Wajngarten “was extremely limited” and his interactions with Forster “occurred before any symptom onset.”
“These interactions would be categorized as LOW risk for transmission per CDC guidelines, and as such, there is no indication for home quarantine at this time,” Conley wrote. “Additionally, given the president himself remains without symptoms, testing for COVID-19 is not currently indicated.”
The White House did not explain on Saturday why it issued a statement saying no test was needed if the president was in fact taking one.
The White House physician’s office on Saturday took Trump’s temperature before his news briefing — he said it was normal — and began taking the temperature of others in the West Wing who would come into proximity of Trump, including journalists, one of whom was barred due to high readings.
The president has sought for weeks to play down the severity of the outbreak and been especially sensitive about giving the impression that he himself was at risk. Indeed, several advisers to Trump on Saturday privately expressed irritation at McDaniel for publicly acknowledging her illness.
Since the start of Trump’s presidency, supporters and hangers-on have gravitated to Mar-a-Lago, paying up to $200,000 for membership in the club — and for proximity to the president. Trump frequently holds court on the patio at dinnertime, shaking hands with members and waving them over to his table.
But the club has been criticized for lax security practices. Last year, a Chinese woman carrying a malware-laced device made it onto the grounds before she was arrested, prompting a rare admonishment from the Secret Service, which effectively blamed the club for porous admission policies.
Despite the corona-virus, the president has not changed his practice of greeting guests at the club, according to a member. Trump believes his willingness to shake hands and connect with supporters helped propel him into office and the club’s unwritten rule is that those who love him or trade on connections with him can come into contact with him.
This rule was on display last weekend in the club’s ballroom, when the president hosted both Bolsonaro for dinner and the extended Trump family for Guilfoyle’s birthday, the two events overlapping to some extent. As Trump escorted Bolsonaro into the club, a reporter asked if newly reported corona virus cases in the Washington area made him worry that it was getting closer to the White House.
“No,” he said with Bolsonaro at his side, “I’m not concerned at all.”
And then the two went inside.
Among the guests on hand was a who’s who of Trump’s world, according to pictures and video posted on social media, including Vice President Mike Pence, the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner recently pardoned by Trump for tax fraud and false statements.
In addition to Donald Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle, there were other family members present, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Eric Trump and his wife, Lara Trump, and Tiffany Trump. Melania Trump did not make the trip to Florida.
Bolsonaro took photos with the president and others, including Pence and Giuliani. “We’re going to have a nice dinner,” Trump said as he introduced the Brazilian president to Ivanka Trump and Carlson.
As it happened, Carlson was concerned that the president was not taking the corona-virus seriously enough and talked with him about it during the evening, according to a person informed about the conversation. Two days later, on his Fox show, Carlson warned viewers: “People you trust, people you probably voted for, have spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem.”
But the mood otherwise that Saturday night was light. Guilfoyle, wearing a thigh-hugging gold sequin dress and set to turn 50 two days later, was toasted by one member of the Trump family after another amid purple and pink lighting suffusing the room.
“You work so hard for the president,” Ivanka Trump told her. “It’s been amazing to get to know you,” Kushner added. Graham told her that “you represent everything Bernie Sanders hates” and promised to get her a tax cut. With a DJ playing music, the guests danced a conga line and enjoyed the evening. Even Robert C. O’Brien, the president’s national security adviser, hung around for the toasts, which some of his colleagues thought was out of place.
While Graham and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida later went into self-quarantine because of exposure to the Brazilians, no guests have reported being sick. “The KG birthday party crew continues to keep up with one another,” Gaetz wrote Friday. “Zero symptoms thus far.”
Two attendees said they had not received specific guidance from the club about the event, but others said they received a general notification about precautions to prevent exposure.
“They sent out an email saying they’re washing the place down a couple of times a day,” said Bruce Toll, a real estate executive and longtime member of Mar-a-Lago. Toll was among several members who said that they were not rethinking visiting the club. “I ate breakfast there yesterday with my grandchildren,” he said, “so I’m not worried.”
Mar-a-Lago was still open for business on Friday, but Lori Elsbree, the host of a 700-person “celebrity doggie fashion show” and fundraiser scheduled for Saturday with Lara Trump as honorary chairwoman, said the event had been postponed.
Chase Scott, another organizer, said the decision was made after the two cases of corona virus were confirmed and a state of emergency was issued in Palm Beach County on Friday. He said the organizers, not the club, made the call. “They understand,” Scott said. “They know that we’re going to reschedule there.”
Jeff Greene, a Mar-a-Lago member until 2018, said Palm Beachers were likely to sequester themselves unless Trump visited. As news of the virus spread, he said, more people were refraining from dining out or socializing.
“Mar-a-Lago is really mostly busy when the president’s in town,” Greene said. “People aren’t going anywhere now.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Reference: Yahoo News
